The Way of the Master Evangelism as a family

   Greetings! I wanted to share with you a recent communication between Mike Cleveland and a person who wrote to him asking `How does one attain a deeper passion for the Lord?'  It seems he has a friend who has grown listless on the seas of life and he was asking for some advice on how to help him `fill the sails' so to speak. Mike's counsel was highly instructional in my own life as I read his response and I believe it may also be helpful to some of you. Mike says:

Hi George,

I understand your friends situation, and am thankful he has contacted you to help him and walk with him:

⁹ Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: ¹⁰ If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up! Ecclesiastes 4:9-10

I can share with you what is bringing much zeal and passion to my previous lukewarm heart; I try to get in the fire of God’s Word for hours on end. I am currently reading through the Bible, from front to back, once a month. As I seek the Lord earnestly and pray for heart change as I read, God ignites passion for His truth and satisfies me in ways I cannot describe. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”. This hungering and thirsting, and the experience of being filled, affects every area of life. As my 7-year-old son, Joshua, said, “I just love the Bible so much that yesterday I wasn’t even angry at Twins.” (Shon: Mike and Jody have twin daughters; Charity and Joy)

A person has to taste and see that the Lord is good; in other words, he has to begin nibbling the Word, and sipping grace from it. As he tastes and sees he wants to eat the whole feast, as he is acquiring spiritual taste buds that yearn for more of God as a deer pants for water. He has to violently push past his fears and doubts, his lusts and cravings, and lay hold of and apprehend God in His Word. This relentless seeking of God in His Word, and walking with God by His Spirit, is what subdues our flesh and all the works it produces. “Walk in the Spirit and you will not gratify the lusts of your flesh.”

Another thing of tremendous value is to go to Oneplace.com or SermonAudio.com and download sermons and listen to them in our spare time. That, combined with reading wonderful puritan sermons from www.puritansermons.com helps to ignite the fire (“did not our hearts burn within us as He spoke?”) I know that the promise for all believers is to experience Jesus in a “baptism of fire”, but this takes much kindling, a healthy spark, and much fanning the flame so as to experience the fire in the Word, by God’s Spirit.

Some of my favorite books which may be of help to your friend are (not in any particular order):

When I don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy—Piper

Christian in Complete Armor—Gurnall

A Body of Divinity—Thomas Watson

All of Grace—Spurgeon

Pilgrim’s Progress—Bunyan

These may be enjoyable for you and your friend, both, George. I am praying earnestly right now that our God, the Consuming Fire, would ignite His Spirit within you both as you pray and study, and that the smoke of your passion and fervor for Jesus would be seen clear across the continent.

Please let me know how things go as able, my dear brother.